Walker Texas Charlotte

Yesterday at the luncheon after my Grandma Carver's funeral, Charlotte took quite a few steps while holding a roll in each hand. She has done this before, but this was the farthest she has ever gone. Today she has decided that walking is pretty fun, and she all but runs from one thing to the next. Nick and I have really enjoyed sending her back and forth between us. We would laugh that one day Charlotte would just decide to walk, and there wouldn't be any wobbling steps, and it really did come true. She is so proud of herself.

This is the second time we've splashed around with colors in the tub. This time I had Nick around to help me out. I poured instant potatoes and food coloring in bowls and let her splash and play and feel. Charlotte loves pouring the potatoes out and swishing the colors with her feet and hands. Her cute little crossed feet melt my heart.

Charlotte on the Boardwalk

Can't miss any chance to eat some bread. 

Back in the Blog Saddle

This morning I asked Charlotte what she wanted to wear. She kept making pinchy fingers, and finally realizing I laughed, "Snip snap?!" Lottie smiled big and nodded her head vigorously. The Santoros gave us an outfit that has a crab on the onesie and a crab on the bum of the striped pants. We've been reading an Under the Sea book where the crabs go "snip snap." What a funny little smartie I have.

For our "every day we must do something fun" activity, Nick and I took Charlotte up the canyon to find some ducks. Blech, we found too many. At first dam there were so many geese and ducks that I had stink face the entire time as I gingerly walked around the sea of bird poop on the grass. The birds weren't impressed that we left the bread in the trunk of our car, but Charlotte had a blast screaming, "Quack!" at them all. On our way back to the car, a goose hissed at us. I regret not slapping its stupid face.

We drove up to second dam to walk around the boardwalk. The bread that was intended for the birds was quickly consumed by Charlotte.

Yesterday we took Lottie on a walk through the nice neighborhood just to the south of us. We saw a woodchuck! It was ridiculous. Right as I was about to say, "Look, a big kitty!" the not-kitty stood up on its hind legs. It was massive, trudged around for a second, then crawled into the hedges. On our way back we saw it again, but it was in a big hurry to cross the street. We saw it sprint, leap, and scuttle under a fence. What a funny guy.

My dear friend Rachel brought me a gift bag full of the sweetest little girl clothes; I cried. I am overwhelmed lately with so many good things happening in my life.

1) I received a full tuition scholarship for the rest of my masters program. One of my professors nominated me, I had to go through a rigorous application and interview process, and I made it!

2) I was incredibly unsure of what to do for work this Fall, but everything has seamlessly fallen in to place. I'm teaching again, which is wonderful, but I was dreading going back to Eastmont because every single one of my closest teacher friends either switched schools, moved to another state, or chose not to teach anymore. One of our new English teachers became an immediate close friend when she poked fun of me at Back-to-School night. She is heaven sent.

3) I'm pregnant; this alone makes me sob. When I was younger, I was told that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to have children. I was devastated, and I was too young to handle the information. It took years for me to climb out of my secret depression. I unfortunately avoided my patriarchal blessing because I felt it mocked me when it talked about my future family. Now I am married to a man who LOVES me, and we are going to have a baby girl. I cannot wait. I can't stop carefully folding and unfolding our little girl's clothes. How did I snag Nick Guyaux? When I came home from my official first day of teaching this year, he had scrubbed the entire apartment, and he had been cooking Indian food all day because he knew I loved it. He is the better half, and I am terrifically spoiled all the time. I chose a song for us the other night, Nick loves Steve Winwood's original version, I love the following version.

Higher Love

This morning I went on a walk with my mom up Porter Rockwell trail. We said good morning to a lot of people, sweat a little, and laughed at how similar my dad and Nick are. Sheesh. "You married your dad!" she teased me.

I had a brief panic attack as I was curling my hair earlier. "What the what?" I whispered as I put down the straightener and pulled two small soft pink flesh-colored pieces out of my hair. I ran to Nick begging him to tell me I didn't have a flesh-eating bacteria attacking my scalp. I turned them over a few times in my hand, we stared in silence, then I happily said, "Oh! It's turkey!" (Nick had made me a turkey sandwich earlier).

I practically skipped back to the bathroom; what a relief! Nick cried out, "How the hell did you get turkey in your hair?!" Dear Nick: Welcome to the mysterious adventures of Amy Bateman ... er ... Guyaux.

Wedding Video

Thanks to Cam Goold and his jean short wearing friend. 

Does anyone read blogs anymore? 

The post format has changed, I'm nervous!


I got married, yup. The mister's out with friends, so here I am, blogging on a Friday night! Here's two somewhat funny stories to help motivate me to get back on the blog bus.


#1) Nick has too much stuff according to me. My inner need to keep all things clean and put 
away has come out in full force now that I have a husband. Boxes of what I consider pure hoarder's crap keep appearing, and I want to cry silently into my pillow. 


The other night we were getting ready to go clean the temple, and Nick kindly asked me to help him go through his boxes and help him throw things away. This was both ground- and heartbreaking. The idea of going through boxes of things such as his childhood toys sounds like Amy torture. The fact that he might throw things away sounds like Amy heaven. 


I tread cautiously and said I was not okay with helping because my default setting has been set to throw away for the past 15 years. I also backed that up with evidence of my complete lack of feeling sentimental for anything. He said he admired me for these qualities, and he needed help throwing stuff away. I responded with a safe conjecture that if I helped, I would throw something away, and it would secretly hurt his feelings, and he would bring it up at a family reunion years later. 


He laughed and said the last thing his Grandmother said to him before she went back to California after our wedding was, "You need to throw stuff away." I never officially said yes to helping him go through his stuff.


As I'm tying my shoes, Nick mentioned that there is one thing he's sentimental about. He started to get into a story about how when he was little, he had a dog, and it died, so he kept the dog's collar. Midsentence, Nick stops, "Why are you shaking your head?" My body betrayed me! I didn't even realize I was already responding via body language to how I felt about this confession. I apologized, and he kept going. He was verge emotional and finished with, "I also saved the rock my dog died next to."


I was so proud of myself for keeping it together and neither laughing nor gagging.




#2) I laughed really hard behind Nick's back today. 

After smushing spiders in the looked-like-it's-never-ever-been-deep-cleaned-before bathroom and getting scared, I finally went and got Nick and asked for his help. I was really nervous about some of the small spaces, so I begged him to do it. "I've already killed four big spiders," when truthfully they weren't too big, and technically one was dead already because I sprayed him to hell with clorox.

So eventually, Nick was bent down scrubbing by our shower, so I went to the kitchen, grabbed a garbage sack and came back. I literally was gone for a max of 20 seconds.

Once I walked back into the bathroom, he whipped around and said, "You cannot leave again!" 

I stammered, "Okay ... I just grabbed a garbage sack..." holding up the garbage as evidence.

He pointed behind him and said, "Well, there was a spider sneaking up on me from behind, 
and you weren't here to warn me!"

Big Girl Bed / Happy Birthday to Me!

Love, love, love the colors. I tried to snap a good picture of the entire ensemble, meh, I liked this catch the best. To me!